


Unresting

by Skowronek



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Animagus, Brothers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fugitives, Gen, Hiding, How Do I Tag, Hull, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Jazz - Freeform, Literary References & Allusions, Muggle Life, Post-Chamber of Secrets, References to Depression, Regulus Black Lives, Regulus is a Bookshop Owner, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Writers, bookshop au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 04:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10632669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skowronek/pseuds/Skowronek
Summary: Regulus Black owns a bookshop. He doesn't own the stray dog that follows him home.Perhaps he wouldn't have minded, only the dog looks like death and nobody is overly fond of Grims. Especially not Regulus, who, as far as the Wizarding World is concerned, has been dead for over a decade.





	

He carries a small notebook with him, right in his pocket. It’s full of witty comebacks.  
Sometimes he invents them on his own, sprawled in his bed at night, sleepless, restless, and entirely absorbed in imaginary conversations playing out in his head. Those nights he writes with quills, ink lazily leaving marks on his skin and on his paper.  
The notebook is as Muggle as you can get in Hull. It’s the most Muggle of cities.  
Other times he jots down quotes – sentences from films he watches alone, books he reads at night-time, songs he listens to on the radio. It’s nice, he thinks, collecting the comebacks. It feels good to be prepared.  
Why would he need to be prepared nowadays, he does not know. He doesn’t hold many witty conversations anymore. 

***

The door to his dingy bookstore opens with a cringy creak that could be fixed with a simple spell if he ever bothered to care. He doesn’t. This way he always knows when to look up from the book he is reading to greet – grumble at – a customer. He doesn’t get too many of these, either.  
There is an elderly man who is losing his sight, and he wonders how long the aged bibliophile would be coming to his bookshop, jovial and quick to smile – something that used to be out of place in his dark little shop, but also something he’s grown used to now and would miss it. He wonders a lot. They never talk about it.  
There is a girl who drops by every week after school, her backpack filled to the brim. She’s got a rebellious look about her that he remembers from his brother, and even her tie, matching the rest of the uniform, is put on sloppily just like Sirius’. She doesn’t buy a lot but often browses, or just reads entire novels sitting on the floor between the high shelves. Regulus lets her. Sometimes he makes her tea.  
There is a thirty-something immigrant from Eastern Europe, whose accent is thick but lilting, and whose eyes are bluer than the cloudy English sky. He comes in after work, an hour or so before Regulus puts the crooked sign that says “closed” on the creaky door, and stays until Regulus gently but firmly ushers him out. He browses textbooks – English for foreigners, Regulus knows (he orders more just for him). The man bought one of these but he comes in to study here nonetheless. He also bought a children’s book once, Regulus remembers. He introduced himself once, months ago. His name was full of silvery sibilants that Regulus can neither pronounce nor even remember, and now he’s too embarrassed to ask again. He makes him tea, too, out of kindness. He knows well how difficult it is to be an outsider in a foreign culture.  
Whoever his patrons are, they are never magical. Regulus knows. That’s why he’s here, up in Hull, and he doesn’t even read the Prophet anymore.  
(Fuck you, he snarls to his fellow wizards and witches though they can’t hear them. It’s the best comeback he can think of, even after all those years). 

***

It’s so easy being dead, sometimes.  
Regulus thinks it feels even more alive, on his best days. He drinks coffee in the mornings, never black, always with a dash of milk, and leaves his bedsit at seven thirty, then walks seven short streets to get to his bookshop at eight sharp. Then he reads, and writes, and sells words he didn’t write, and it is all together more peaceful and less hateful than anything he could have been doing in the Wizarding World.  
He wanted to craft spells, once. A pity. Nowadays he mostly invents swear-words. 

***

There is no swear-word potent enough to express his annoyance that one July morning when Regulus woke up to the grumble of thunder.  
A storm. That’s what you need on a weekday.  
(Regulus is too bitter to ignore the pathetic truth that the change of weather is, by large, the most exciting thing to happen to him this month).  
He paddles to his kitchen, as gloomy as the rest of his flat, and puts the kettle own with the mindless practice of an addict. He’s run out of coffee; and so he drinks his tea bitter today, catering to his tastes.  
What a fuckwit god allows the rain to fall on a Tuesday when he’s got to go to work, Regulus thinks, and in this godforsaken town of all places.  
He postpones the moment he has to step out until he can’t wait any longer, and then all but runs to the bookshop, all the while swearing in his head, and he’s so annoyed and helpless against the rain that all he chants is fuck, fuck, fuck, and finally ugh.  
If he’d wanted to get wet, he’d have taken a goddamn shower. At home. What a waste of a day. 

***

It continues being a waste; Regulus sells nothing, but there’s an influx of random people coming in just to escape the weather outside. Nobody is interested in even pretending to be interested in his books, and Regulus sits there, seething silently, because seriously, if he had wanted to be stuck in a room full of assholes, he would have never left Grimmauld Place and Black family gatherings. There’s a screaming kid that knocks a book down and his father can’t be bothered to pick it up like a normal person would, and Regulus has to stand up and walk up to it and do it on his own while maintaining his professional cool. He’s as far from cool as he can get.  
Then an old lady walks in, dressed head to toe in a long yellow raincoat which is definitely not waterproof, as Regulus pointedly notices. The rain drops drip down on his floor, creating a pool that just adds to the misery of the day. The lady notices and wrings it so now a small waterfall makes the pool larger and larger.  
Regulus squares his shoulders and ask her, ‘Would you like a bucket?’, and at that all hell breaks loose.  
Regulus had never felt such profound happiness like when she finally left his bookshop. 

***

(People like her, he notes down later that day, are why he questions evolution).

***

He closes the bookshop at the usual time, having sold nothing. None of his regulars had visited either, and the day feels like a disaster, the kind that persists like a bad migraine. The rain had stopped; the air would have smelled fresh in any other place, but here Regulus can taste the sickly smell of petrol and cigarettes, both of which he detests. He knows the smoke will linger on his shirt and in his hair, and resolves to take a quick shower the moment he gets home.  
So he walks down the street, his anger slowly dissipating into something akin to muted indifference. He walks into a puddle; the dirty water sinks through the sole of his shoe, unavoidably like a nightmare. Regulus wishes desperately for a wand and for a quick Drying Spell – he used to be so proficient at these – but there are prices to be paid for the air he breathes. Resolving not to think about his sock being uncomfortably cold and wet, he focuses on something else; there’s a Margaret Atwood novel waiting for him on the kitchen counter, perfect for a cup of tea and an evening full of worlds other than his own. Or maybe he should read some fantasy novel instead; Regulus is amused with the Muggles’ approaches to magic, some even more creative than reality. Somehow, he can read them without the lump of bitterness in his throat.  
He stops at a crossing, waiting patiently for the lights to change, when he spots a dog. It’s a mutt, muddy as they come, with dark fur tangled in knots of misery. Its big body is thin, too thin, and it looks wary.  
It looks like a Grim, Regulus realizes, and oh sweet Merlin I’m going to die.  
To die in Hull would be the best conclusion of his pathetic life.  
The lights change; Regulus should keep walking, but he stays there, watching the dog as if under a spell. The Grim doesn’t notice, sniffing around, until suddenly it does, its ears perking up and its body leaping at him in one smooth motion. Regulus stumbles back, wishing for a wand.  
But the Grim is friendly; it waves its tail as if seeing a long-lost friend. Regulus shies away from it, putting his foot down, mumbling something with what he hopes is fearlessness. It really can’t get much worse than death personified trying to lick your face.  
The Grim follows Regulus home, trailing after him happily, bouncing like an overgrown puppy – and since when Grims behave like that? Regulus gives it wary looks and discouragingly tries to shoo it away, but you can’t just make Death leave once it decides to stick by you. Stories have taught Regulus this much.  
Nobody pays attention to a man dressed in black and a dog, blacker than night. It’s as if they were just taking a walk. The dog is maybe too enthusiastic; the man comes across as aloof and aghast, but people in the streets always mind their own businesses, and if anybody thinks anything about the strange part, it is left unsaid.  
Regulus leaves plenty things left unsaid, himself. For a brief second, he entertains the bizarre thought; can you Avada Kedavra the death itself? Then he feels shame travelling up to his face. The Grim’s eyes look surprisingly human, aware, alive. Regulus is reminded of the days when being alive was an extravagance.  
(He has a whole notebook dedicated to expletives. He lists them in no particular order. They cover sixty pages. It took one week and seven dictionaries to write them all down. Now Regulus reads them to himself, as a precaution, as a reminder, not to err again. All of them, of course, refer to him).  
He sighs. It’s surprisingly easy to accept his fate. He stops at his front door, opens it (the Muggle way, always the Muggle way, with a key and no wand and no Alohomora), and lets the Grim in.  
He’s been as well as dead for years anyway.

***

Regulus kicks off his shoes in a practiced motion, passes the dog in the hall and heads to the kitchen; it’s a bit dingy, as usual, and as usual he doesn’t think about it anymore. There are things you have to get used to when you’re not Heir Black anymore.  
(Regulus has a list of such things, too, but keeps it in his mind only; even this, perhaps, is dangerous).  
‘What do you want to eat, then?’, he asks with a certain kind of resignation. His fridge is almost empty, and he doubts the Grim would appreciate his beer anyway.  
‘Chicken would be perfect, but I’ll take whatever you have’.  
It’s an instinct he will never get rid of; Regulus pivots on his feet light like a dancer, throws his arm out and shouts a curse. No light leaves his wand (because Merlin, Regulus, you have no wand you dumbwit).  
The man in front of him looks at Regulus with empathetic understanding.  
‘Yeah’, he says. ‘This happens to me as well’.  
‘You imbecile’, Regulus croaks with emphasis. ‘You were supposed to be in Azkaban. What have you done?’  
‘Oh’, Sirius shrugs and sits in Regulus’ only chair before he’s invited, and that’s such a Sirius thing to do. ‘I may have run away. Haven’t you heard?’  
‘Unlike you, I try to keep my head low’, Regulus hisses. He takes a deep breath (and Merlin, Sirius does need a bath), and suddenly it strikes him, the bitter irony: two brothers Black, one innocent and out of prison he should lawfully be in, the other guilty but out of it. And now two of them, Wizarding nobility, in the same Muggle flat, in the most Muggle of cities.  
He doesn’t say anything about it, though. Regulus may live like a Muggle and may well die like a Muggle, but he’s still a Slytherin through and through. There are more pressing matters to discuss.  
‘So, how did you find me?’, he asks instead.  
Sirius shrugs, a slow, elegant motion, which looks out of place in the dingy kitchen and on a man who’s been out of prison, on the run, and homeless.  
‘I didn’t’, he says. ‘Nobody would think that Black would hide in Hull, of all the possible places’.  
Suddenly, it strikes Regulus again how ironic it is, how similar. He laughs – a dry, bitter sound because he’s clearly out of practice – and Sirius makes a weird face, showing something between wound and offence.  
‘You’re a bloody copycat’, Regulus tells him. ‘I thought this first’. 

***

Hours pass. Regulus, ever the martyr, goes to a shop and finally makes them some chicken. It tastes awful, but Sirius wolfs it down faster than you’d say Imperio, and Regulus eats because he’s poor and can’t afford wasting food. Sirius showers – an unusual occurrence, they both know, and Regulus has enough tact and good manners left not to point that out when he hands his older brother a towel. There is no need to mention that Sirius smells of wet stray dog.  
Regulus doesn’t ask when and how his brother became an Animagus. He’s a Slytherin. He knows the value of secrets. Besides, he has an inkling he may already know.  
A part of him wants to kick his brother out like a stray dog he is; Regulus is a runaway, too, and there’s nothing he wants more than his peace and quiet. (That’s a lie). He hasn’t been building his proper illusion of a life for years only for Sirius to run into him because he scented a similar smell in the street and followed it with his nose. If Aurors Apparate at his doorstep, Regulus is as well as dead.  
(He already is).  
But there is a different part of him which screams family. Regulus may be callous and a coward, but he’s not entirely heartless. He knows his brother is innocent; he’s always known and never said there should be a Black locked up in Azkaban; there should be a Black but not the one that Azkaban got.  
As far as Regulus is concerned, he owes Sirius a debt. 

***

When Sirius returns from his shower, he’s still a wet dog, but not a smelly one. Regulus thanks Merlin for small mercies.  
‘Sit’, he points sharply to an old wooden stool he set up in the kitchen. Sirius does, eyebrows raised. Regulus half-heartedly waits for a snarky comment, and then finds himself slightly disappointed when none comes.  
‘You know, if somebody ever wondered why you didn’t get into Slytherin, now it’s more obvious than ever. You’ve escaped a prison and didn’t think to change your appearance even slightly?’  
‘I was a dog’, Sirius says, affronted.  
‘And your looks were still a disgrace to all dogkind’, Regulus replies, unimpressed. ‘Really, Sirius. I’m assuming you have to change back sometimes’.  
He reaches for scissors and begins cutting his brother’s long hair off. He’s nowhere near proficient – he always gets his haircuts done down the street – but everything is an improvement when compared to Sirius’ current hairstyle. Wet hair begins falling down on the floor in ugly tangled streaks.  
Sirius lets him cut it, silent. For a moment, the scissors make the only sound. Regulus attempts to recall the haircut Sirius wore during the war; he doesn’t want to make this too similar and cuts the hair shorter. It’s difficult; for a moment, he loses himself in his work.  
(It’s better than losing himself in emotions).  
Then, Sirius shifts, and Regulus swears; there’s a droplet of blood on his finger.  
‘Sorry, Reggie’, Sirius says immediately. He seems genuinely regretful and Regulus is surprised by that more than by the blood. The easy familiarity with which Regulus’ name is spoken strikes them both.  
Regulus slowly puts his finger into his mouth and sucks on the blood. He wishes for something, desperately, and doesn’t bother to voice it.  
Emotions are always better expressed in books, he thinks absently, and he’s always been more of a reader than a writer.  
‘How are you?’, Sirius says, after a while. It’s a chocked sound. Regulus nods, but he’s standing behind his brother so the motion goes unnoticed.  
‘It doesn’t bleed anymore’, he replies then.  
‘I don’t mean the blood’, Sirius answers a bit brashly. ‘Sorry about that, by the way’.  
‘You apologized once. It’s enough’, Regulus says. He resumes cutting Sirius’ hair.  
‘I’m all right’, he says. (He’s not).  
‘You’re like a Muggle’, Sirius answers. They both know what it means for Regulus. Sirius, at least, can shift into his Animagus form; he can feel magic building up in his muscles as he changes into a dog. Regulus only has memories.  
He doesn’t reply to that, and they both know why. The last time they had been close was ages ago, before Sirius got sorted into a house which valued the very beliefs their family so despised. But you don’t need a brotherly bond to understand what it’s like to sacrifice your magic.  
‘You should shave’, Regulus says instead. 

***

It’s quiet; Regulus lets Sirius stay the night, although no words were exchanged. Sirius curls up on the sofa in the living room, snatching Regulus’ old blanket with an incredible expression on his face. Regulus wonders if they give you blankets in Azkaban. He doesn’t ask.  
He sits, a bit stiffly, in his armchair, the one he prefers for his night reading. There’s a lamp by his side on a wobbly table, cluttered with an uneven pile of books to read and to reread. Never before has Regulus noticed the unassuming domesticity he somehow must have created in all the years he’s lived here; it has never been so apparent before, not until the moment Sirius came here, looking weirdly shy and out of place.  
And to think Regulus never thought his place was homely.  
(They were not good at making spaces cosy, the both of them; growing up in a house in which your house elf’s head could end up on a wall taught you a lot of things, but warmth and comfort were not one of them).  
Regulus picks a random book – Larkin’s High Windows, how aptly – and opens it just to mask his restlessness. He doesn’t read; his eyes trace the verses with the practiced ease and unpractised obliviousness. Regulus is used to reading closely, paying attention to the choice of words and to the cadence. He’s not used to being read instead, and that’s what Sirius’ eyes on him feel like.  
‘I’ll give you some clothes’, he says when the silence becomes unbearable like a dull headache. ‘Of course you’d be stupid enough to parade around in a prison robe’.  
Sirius sighs, exasperatedly. He looks so much like the Sirius from Regulus’ childhood that it hurts, a bit, an after-ache of a long-forgotten emotion.  
‘I’ve told you, Reggie, I’m a dog’.  
Regulus suddenly chuckles.  
‘You certainly dress like one’, he says.  
And again they fall silent. Regulus can’t stand it; the easy moment of camaraderie passes all too soon. Before he knows it, the awkwardness is on again, so he stands up and browses idly his meagre vinyl collection, finally choosing an old jazz piece that he’s grown fond of but which Sirius is unlikely to know, Muggle as it is. His brother may be a Muggle lover but his interest has always been shallow at best. Coleman Hawkins’ saxophone cuts through the silence with a velvet glide and Regulus finds himself immediately relaxing.  
‘Is it what you do?’, Sirius ask. ‘Sit in a Muggle flat listening to Muggle music?’  
His tone of voice is slightly edgy; Regulus is not sure – it may be teasing or it may be scathing. He knows what Sirius is hinting at.  
‘I do, now’, he says. ‘I live in a Muggle flat, I listen to Muggle music, and I sell Muggle books to Muggles, and that’s it’.  
Sirius seems to realize, belatedly, he’s ventured into a territory he should have left unexplored.  
‘I’m sorry’, he offers. Regulus notes his brother is sincere in his apologies today; it’s not unwelcome but unexpected.  
‘You should sleep’, he tells Sirius harshly enough. ‘I can’t keep you here forever. You’re leaving in the morning. What are you going to do, anyway?’  
He realizes he should not have asked; it’s safer for him to know as little as possible. And he suspects the answer before Sirius even confirms it; Regulus, after all, knows his brother.  
‘I’m going to see Harry’, Sirius declares.  
‘You bloody knob’, Regulus says. 

***

In the morning, he feels oddly disconnected. It’s still April; Regulus can hear the wind hollering outside like every day for the last week. He knows his brother is somewhere in his tiny flat, leaving traces of his idiocy behind and making it easier for the Aurors to catch them both.  
Regulus sighs and makes them porridge.  
‘You need a name’, he says when they eat. Sirius still looks like he’s starving.  
‘I have one’, Sirius says. He looks much more interested in his food than their conversation.  
‘There’s more in the pot if you want it’, Regulus offers tonelessly. ‘You can’t tell me you’ve been using your own name all this time, Sirius’.  
‘I’ve told you’, Sirius repeats, his eyes on the pot. ‘I’m a dog’.  
‘You’re a person who sometimes needs to shift back, you nutter’, Regulus explains. He’s proud of his patience. ‘You need a name. A Muggle name’.  
‘I’ll be James’, Sirius declares, because of course he would.  
It’s Muggle enough, Regulus gives it to him, but also blatantly obvious.  
‘Philip’, he decides instead. It’s as Muggle as it gets.

***

He lets Sirius – Philip – out soon; he doesn’t really say goodbye. They’ve already had one, way back when Sirius left for Hogwarts and Regulus stayed behind. Sirius shifts into the Grim; Regulus itches to touch his four just for a second, to feed on the magic, but he doesn’t dare.  
He stands on the doorstep and watches the dog wandering down the street, becoming smaller and smaller. There’s a poem ringing in his head, the one about distance and watching, by Philip Larkin. He will look it up later, if he ever has time.  
Regulus knows he has to hurry; traces are too easy to follow, they always are; Regulus is a Black and it seems that now Blacks are fugitives.  
So he walks back upstairs and into his now empty flat. The dirty pot in which he cooked their porridge has gone cold. The Margaret Atwood book is still as he left it, and so are Larkin’s poems.  
He wonders if he really has to run; he’s been here for so very long, surrounded only by words. Mindlessly, he sits, although his instincts scream at him to act, to flee, to do something. But Regulus can only think back to the moment on the doorstep, when he was watching Sirius disappear from his life completely. He knows that he should have said something, but even now his words fail him.

**Author's Note:**

> I originally planned to begin this fic with a quote from the poem which inspired it, but now it doesn't seem to fit as well as it did when I first started writing here. So, instead, here's a list of the references:  
> The choice of the setting and Regulus' literary and musical preferences are a bow to Philip Larkin, a terrific poet and jazz critic, who happened to live in Hull. Regulus reads his collection of poems, High Windows, and recalls his poem entitled [How Distant](https://allpoetry.com/How-Distant). The title of this fic is inspired by Larkin's poem [Aubade](https://allpoetry.com/poem/8495769-Aubade-by-Philip-Larkin)  
> .  
> A lot of inspiration for Regulus comes from Wendy Cope's [parody](http://www.parodies.org.uk/larkin-cope.htm) of Larkin's [Mr Bleaney](http://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/mr-bleaney/).  
> The music Regulus listens to can be heard [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkvju_DlP8A/).
> 
>  
> 
> [I'm on Tumblr!](https://keyboardandkaja.tumblr.com/)


End file.
